By: Kelly Lenox
Shallow bay
sandbox
snow—
my growing-
up years mobile
Moving vans
my familiars
My mother’s
Going home
unpacked
grandparents
cousins
sunshine
and jellyfish sting
oyster-cut foot
and fish fry
beans mullet bream
hushpuppies
A day further to my father’s folks
Cattle egrets
below billboards
of glass-bottom boats
We float
Crystal Springs
where jungle birds sing
Sweet tea
and baseball on TV
louvered glass
sharp grass
grapefruit tree
Once—a bike wreck
knee gravel
stuck indoors
embroidery kit
hoop-stretched cotton
amber antennae
blue wings
half-stitched
leg healed
Hours in the wagon’s
back-back
back
to whatever town
we were
home in
Half-remembered houses
Newport Annandale
Escondido
Brick ranch
carported split-level
the first vaulted ceiling
Sisters, brother
readymade playmates
What to hold
when packers start in?
Decades later my mother
closet sorting
finds
finishes
frames it
Comes visiting her grandkids gifts for each
The sea-blue butterfly complete for me.
Kelly Lenox's poems, prose and translations are published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, EcoTheo Review, Hubbub, Split Rock Review and elsewhere in the U.S., U.K., Slovenia, and Ireland. Her debut collection, The Brightest Rock (2017), received honorable mention for the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. She has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations and holds an MFA from Vermont College. Kelly makes her home in Oregon.
"The short lines and gracious use of blank space in Lorine Niedecker’s “Paean to Place” cradle a great deal of life difficulty. The water images and soundscape captivated me, and a friend charged me with writing an imitation. But my childhood was the opposite of Niedecker’s in terms of place. What got me unstuck was resolving to let mobility and transience carry the poem, with the contrast of grounded lives of my relatives. The embroidered butterfly alit as a surprise and became an important tribute to the sort of small acts a parent can take, which are so easy to take for granted. Plus, I was notorious for not finishing things. That butterfly holds a special place on my wall."